Train vehicles are used in various environments for various purposes. In one example, train vehicles are used to transport passengers from one location to another. Often, this will involve the train vehicle passing through an urban environment, as is the case, for instance, with metropolitan light rail transit systems.
Many metropolitan light rail transit systems operate on tracks positioned at a common elevation with various other urban travel pathways, including roads, bike paths, and pedestrian walkways. As a result, a single stretch of track can frequently intersect on-grade with some or all of these types of urban travel pathways. Moreover, in many cases this same stretch of track may actually share a road (e.g., the stretch track is between two opposite lanes of traffic on a roadway), or other travel pathway, without any sort of physical barrier therebetween. Consequently, this layout invariably causes collisions between the train vehicle and the automobile, bike, and/or pedestrian using the travel pathway.
To further complicate matters, distractions to automobile drivers, bike riders, and pedestrians are more prevalent than ever. For instance, distractions posed by cellular telephone, or other mobile device, usage are ever-increasing. Furthermore, urban environments are proliferated with advertising, or other content, precisely intended to catch the eye of automobile drivers, bike riders, and pedestrians (e.g., through use of bright colors, intense illuminations, etc.). In addition to these and other distractions, some automobile drivers, bike riders, and pedestrians have impairments that prevent them from sensing one or more particular types of safety warnings.
However, despite the risks inherent to the described layout of train vehicle transit system tracks, this type of track layout is in wide-spread use, and its usage will likely continue to grow as urban populations across the world increase. This is due, in large part, to the relatively low cost of constructing this type of track layout and the accompanying train vehicle transit system. For one, by positioning tracks at a same elevation as various other urban travel pathways, extra ground-level space required for the tracks, as well as the use of tunnels and/or elevated tracks (e.g., bridges), is minimized. As such, without appropriate safety precautions, collisions between train vehicles and the automobiles, bikes, and/or pedestrians using the travel pathways will continue to be a problem.